Order-of-Operations Delusions If Then Suffering
Order of operations is a rule indicating the correct sequence of steps for evaluating a math expression. Because this phrase works so well as shorthand, I noticed I’d taken to using it quite often to help clients have a better sense of what to expect in a given session, or to give the rationale for why we were starting in a particular place. The metaphor of a psychotherapeutic order of operations might serve some purpose, might help some clients feel more comfortable–as if psychotherapy treatment works as tidily and reliably as PEMDAS. But I have to admit that a part of me thinks that what perpetuates folks who haven’t stabilized in nondual understanding feeling like it’s impossible to stabilize in nondual understanding is a belief in a sort of spiritual, or self-actualization, order of operations.
This line of thinking brings us to Maslow, and his hierarchy of needs, which basically says that if we are preoccupied trying to get basic needs met, we probably don’t have a lot of energy available for ‘optional’ pursuits. However, plentiful critiques of Maslow (and how his work has been interpreted) help us remember that self-actualization is not linear. Self-actualization can happen even when ‘basic needs’ have not been met. In some cases, unmet needs can actually be motivation for self-actualization. For myself, I feel like I’ve gotten quite skilled at calling myself out on, and seeing through, the hazards of believing in either material or immaterial order of operations. As a therapist, it’s all too common (and somewhat heartbreaking) to see clients get so caught in order of-operations delusions, which I’ve come to call the ‘if/thens’.
The If/Then Game
This “ if/then” game basically means we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that our peace and well-being are predicated on something. In the “if _____, then _____” construction, we set up a scenario involving chronological order (first comes ___, which later will produce ____” and a hypothesis about whatever we’ve framed as ‘the problem’ (that which we feel we lack) and the solution (the thing we think we want but don’t have), all with the premise that if what we were experiencing (or not experiencing) changed, we would then experience or not experience something we think we would prefer.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs#criticisms
Maslow himself apparently admitted this in his later work
Here are some classics (from the Suffering 101 Playbook):
Big Ticket ‘If/thens’
“If I had a lot more money, then I could take a chunk of time off work and then I would relax [and feel good, not stressed the way I feel right now]”
“If I had a partner, I would feel loved, and then I would be able to focus on my career [and then I would feel good, not lonely and yearning the way I feel right now]”
“If I had a meaningful job, then I wouldn’t feel so driftless [and then I would feel good, not bored and dissatisfied the way I feel right now]
“If my knee didn’t hurt, then I would jog, and I’d be in better shape [and feel good, not disgusted with myself the way I feel right now]”
Dollar Store ‘If/thens’
“If my partner were more communicative, and texted me back with something sweet and substantive, instead of a one-word reply, then I wouldn’t feel lonely and dissatisfied [and I would feel good, and loved]”
“If my taxes were already done, then I wouldn’t have to think about my taxes [and I wouldn’t feel guilty, incompetent, and overwhelmed”]
Whenever I talk about the “if/thens” with my clients, I bring up the Buddha story. The Buddha started out super wealthy, with every material thing. Seeing that having all the material wealth didn’t make him happy, he left to go be an ascetic. Then, seeing that being an ascetic didn’t make him happy, he left the ascetics. Usually, in our own lives, without having the direct experience that the thing we thought we wanted didn’t resolve the issue we hoped it would, it’s a tough sell to our ego parts to START with the notion that getting something we feel we lack won’t be the solution to the problem.
Say, for instance, I’m broke. My if/then goes something like, “I am hungry and don’t have any money, which makes me anxious about how I’m going to find my next meal. If I had financial security, then I would know I’d have enough money to buy food, [and not having to worry would make me feel relaxed and secure]. ” If I were your therapist, and you told me this, I’d be kind of an asshole to tell you, “your happiness and well-being aren’t dependent on financial security!” (even though technically, nondualistically, I would be correct.)
So to me (and maybe this is because I’m a social worker and would get stoned to death by my social work peers for disowning my financial privilege), it’s a good idea to acknowledge that human beings with nervous systems tend to do better when we have basic needs (food, shelter, safety) met. But I also suspect that this type of acknowledging gets people into wrong-minded and potentially sloppy thinking, where we don’t realize that we’ve made an associative leap, formulated a ‘problem’, and framed the solution for the problem (which many or may not actually resolve the problem–a problem which may or may not actually exist). It would be more accurate + clear to say, in the realm of becoming, the BODY and the nervous system certainly prefer to have a roof over their head, and food in the belly. Our beingness never gets hungry or anxious, so on the vertical dimension, there is no problem, there is no solution. The ego part who gets pulled into the ‘if/thens’ got hooked by misunderstanding lack, and the satiation of lack.
And, it would make perfect sense to me that a person in poverty, from an ego part, would reply to the snooty nondual insistence that peace and well-being aren’t contingent on financial security with something like, “Ok. How about you give me 300,000 dollars and then I’ll tell you whether I agree with you?” It does get kind of interesting when you chase the financial example down, bringing in some research. A famous 2010 study by psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton explored whether money played a part in two aspects of people’s emotional lives. Kahneman and Deaton defined these two aspects as “Emotional well-being”, by which they meant “the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience—the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, stress, sadness, anger, and affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant.” The second aspect they called “ Life evaluation”, referring to “the thoughts that people have about their life when they think about it.”
The study found that money did have an impact for how people evaluate their lives when they think about it; that people with more money feel better about their lives. However, emotional well-being rose with income, as expected too, but only to an annual salary of $75,000 ($90,000 in today’s money). Beyond that, people were no happier with higher salaries. The seminal study concluded that whilst “low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being”, ironically, “high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexledsom/2021/02/07/new-study-shows-that-more-money-buys-more-happiness/?sh=219cad5870d5
For many, the take-away of that research was: here’s a magic number that signifies you have ‘enough’ money, where you won’t necessarily be totally preoccupied by how much money you have (or don’t have). And yet, not being preoccupied by how much money you have doesn’t mean you will have peace & wellbeing.
While I’ve spent many sessions in what feels like hot debate with clients about all this, what I see now is that it’s a simple confusion about the x and y. On the horizontal plane, in the realm of becoming, having more or less money would influence many aspects of our conditioned existence. From a being perspective, money matters not at all. The thinking error we’ve lapsed into (with our if/then-conditioned minds) is believing that something shifting on the horizontal dimension will ‘give us’ the vertical dimension (as if we don’t already have the vertical dimension, or as if the vertical dimension is an object on the horizontal dimension.) The trickiest if/then we engage in is thinking, “if I make myself perfect (which my ego parts stubbornly keep trying to achieve, despite my lived experience of disconfirmations showing me it’s impossible to achieve perfection on the x-axis) in the realm of becoming, then I will attain beingness.